The hypothesis that BHE/Cdb rats with mutations in their mitochondrial genome might accommodate this mutation by changing their food intake patterns was tested. Four experiments were conducted. Experiments 1 and 2 examined food intake patterns of BHE/Cdb rats fed a stock diet or BHE/Cdb and Sprague-Dawley rats fed a high-fat diet from weaning. Experiment 3 examined the daily rhythms of respirat...

Circadian rhythms are believed to be an evolutionary adaptation to daily environmental cycles resulting from Earth's rotation about its axis. A trait evolved through a process of natural selection is considered as adaptation; therefore, rigorous demonstration of adaptation requires evidence suggesting evolution of a trait by natural selection. Like any other adaptive trait, circadian rhythms ar...

This paper reports on a study of sleep amongst men and women who are living in residential rehabilitation centres in the UK and who are receiving support for their recovery from addiction to alcohol and other forms of substance use. Conceptually and methodologically, the paper draws on the work of the French sociologist Lefebvre and, in particular, his rhythmanalysis. We argue that this approac...

We studied the EEG and Rorschach test (RT) of nineteen AIDS patients and eight normal people in the same age group. Eight patients presented slow alpha rhythms (8 to 9 Hz); three, not-slow alpha rhythms (> 9 to 13 Hz); and eight, beta rhythms in background activity. Paroxystic activity, characterized by diffuse theta or delta waves, was present in eleven patients. We observed Oberholzer syndrom...

Eigensynth is a novel synthesis engine for extracting and generating rhythms. The idea being that the user trains the synthesizer with drumming samples instead of programming them in a traditional paradigm. Rhythms are extracted using signal processing techniques, normalized and then sent for analysis using Principal Component Analysis (PCA). The original rhythms are projected into this PCA all...

The transcription factor Mef2 has well established roles in muscle development in Drosophila and in the differentiation of many cell types in mammals, including neurons. Here, we describe a role for Mef2 in the Drosophila pacemaker neurons that regulate circadian behavioral rhythms. We found that Mef2 is normally produced in all adult clock neurons and that Mef2 overexpression in clock neurons ...

Animals, plants, fungi and even some prokaryotic organisms display daily rhythms in behavior, physiology, metabolic activity and gene expression. These rhythms are not passively driven by environmental cycles (e.g. light and temperature) but are controlled by endogenous circadian clocks that keep time even in the absence of environmental time cues. Environmental cycles are nevertheless required...

While it is difficult to define precisely what makes a “good” rhythm good, it is not hard to specify properties that contribute to a rhythm’s goodness. One such property is that the mirrorsymmetric transformation of the rhythm about some axis of the rhythm’s cycle, represented as a circle, be the same as its complementary rhythm. Rhythms that have this property are called interlocking reflectio...

Intracellular free Ca(2+) regulates diverse cellular processes, including membrane potential, neurotransmitter release, and gene expression. To examine the cellular mechanisms underlying the generation of circadian rhythms, nucleus-targeted and untargeted cDNAs encoding a Ca(2+)-sensitive fluorescent protein (cameleon) were transfected into organotypic cultures of mouse suprachiasmatic nucleus ...

This paper reviews lateralized ultradian rhythms in the nervous system and their unique place in evolutionary development. The rhythmic lateralization of neural activity in paired internal structures and the two sides of the central and autonomic nervous system is discussed as a new view for the temporal and spatial organization of higher vertebrates. These lateralized neural rhythms are integr...